After having her luxurious life shattered by the betrayal of her cousin, Princess Yona is forced to escape with her childhood friend and bodyguard, Son Hak.
However, leaving her palace forces her to see the poverty and strife that really makes up her beloved kingdom.
Now she must journey to not only regain her rightful throne, but to return her kingdom to its former glory.
It will never not be a shame that this anime never continued because it was really just scratching the surface of what is a great fantasy tale. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Yona of the Dawn, head on down below.
Anime Like Yona of the Dawn
For Fans of Reclaiming Your Kingdom
The Heroic Legend of Arslan
The young prince Arslan is ready to prove himself on the battlefield, but on his first battle, his father is betrayed and his kingdom is conquered.
With his army in shambles, Arslan is forced to go on the run in search of allies to bring him back home.
Think of The Heroic Legend of Arslan as a gender-swapped Yona of the Dawn, because it very much is.
Both series follow young nobles who are suddenly forced to flee their home after their royal parents were betrayed and their kingdom was taken over by a coup. The young noble, alongside their loyal bodyguard, then try to win support to take back their throne.
However, while Yona seeks out the Dragon Warriors of myth, Arslan is more grounded in realism as he has to convince various nobles to support his claim to their throne. Though Yona and Arslan do share a certain sense of young idealism and more than a little naivety.
Moribito
It is said that a widespread drought is coming to the Shin Yogo Empire, and in order to avoid famine, the reincarnation of the water spirit must be sacrificed in order to prevent it. However, the water spirit is the emperor’s own son.
In effort to save his life, the prince’s mother spirits the boy away with a mysterious female mercenary to protect him until the Emperor reconsiders.
Unlike Yona of the Dawn where the young princess was forced from her palace by a coup, Moribito follows a young prince whisked away from his palace by a mercenary because his father was going to sacrifice him to prevent a drought.
While both the royalty and the bodyguard are gender-swapped, there is no romance in Moribito. While Yona of the Dawn has a romantic element, Moribito is more a coming-of-age tale for the prince.
What you get in both series is naive young royalty learning how the world really is outside of their palace, something that will make them a better leader in the future.
Both Yona of the Dawn and Moribito also feature well-built and interesting worlds that have Asian influences as well.
The Twelve Kingdoms
In what started as a normal day as a normal high school student, Nakajima Youko has her reality shattered when a strange man named Keiki appears before her, swearing his allegiance.
When Youko and her friends are attacked by demons, they are pulled into a different world, one she has never known.
Separated from Keiki, Youko and her friends must do whatever they have to in order to survive this strange, harsh place.
Although The Twelve Kingdoms is an isekai anime, it is an older one before isekai was all just kind of the same thing. Furthermore, while Yona of the Dawn follows Yona fleeing from a coup, The Twelve Kingdoms is about a girl finding out she is royalty and growing into the role of a ruler.
While both series start off with pretty naive protagonists, Youko can be a bit obnoxious in the beginning, but gets much more likable over time. It is also worth noting that, while it seems like the type of anime to have it, The Twelve Kingdoms isn’t a romance. It is much more focused on the main character growing as a person.
Guin Saga
The kingdom of Parros has been invaded. The king and queen have been slain, but their twin children have been spirited away by a strange device in the palace.
Lost in the Roodwood, they are rescued from invading soldiers by a strange amnesiac leopard-headed man named Guin.
Yona of the Dawn and Guin Saga follow the tale of young royals who were suddenly chased from their palace by a coup. As they are not accustomed to the outside world and full of naivety, they are kept alive by their powerful bodyguard.
However, while Yona of the Dawn is focused on gathering her reverse harem of guardians and explores a romance, Guin Saga is not a romance and often more focused on the mystery of why their bodyguard was cursed with the head of a leopard. In essence, the bodyguard is the main character in Guin Saga, unlike in Yona of the Dawn where the displaced noble is the main character.
For Fans of Princesses on the Run
Fena – Pirate Princess
After tragedy at sea left her stranded and orphaned on an island, Fena was raised to be pleasure slave for soldiers of the British Empire.
However, after being broken from her chains by members from her past, she sets out to the sea in order find a place she can be free and unravel the mystery behind a strange stone left behind by her father involving a place called Eden.
Yona of the Dawn tells a pretty common story about a young royal chased out of her palace by a coup. The only real mystery in it is why it happened, and the answer to that is simple and stated pretty early. By comparison, Fena Pirate Princess is much more mysterious with its plot.
While both series are adventure stories where the princess main characters learn more about themselves while guarded by a series of handsome men, the entire plot of Fena Pirate Princess is you figuring out what is going on alongside the main character.
While both Fena and Yona are women of destiny, you don’t really know what Fena’s destiny is until much later in the series.
Scrapped Princess
Known as the Scrapped Princess, a poison that will destroy the world, Pacifica Casull is hated by the worshipers of the god Mauser.
To avoid being killed, Pacifica and her adopted brother and sister leave her village of Manhurin, looking for a way to avoid the foreseen disaster that will befall the world on her 16th birthday.
Both Yona of the Dawn and Scrapped Princess follow princesses that were forced to flee their homes. Furthermore, they also both feature a romance between that naive princess and her more stern bodyguard.
However, while Yona of the Dawn plays the plot pretty straightforwardly, Scrapped Princess takes a rather odd turn where the series essentially goes from fantasy to sci-fi. It is also worth noting that while Yona starts pretty naive, Pacifica is so naive and just plain bratty that she is almost unlikable, though her character grows out of it like Yona eventually.
For Fans of Fantasy Romance
Snow White With The Red Hair
Shirayuki is an herbalist that lives a normal life in the country of Tanbarun. However, when her beautiful red hair is noticed by the Prince Raji, he tries to make her his concubine.
She then decides to cut her hair and flees into the forest. It is there she is rescued by the second Prince of neighboring country, Wistalia, named Zen.
In order to repay her life debt to him, she sets her hopes on becoming the court herbalist in the capital of Clarines.
Although both anime series have their own plots they explore, audiences will always remember both Yona of the Dawn and Snow White With The Red Hair as romance anime, although the love story does play a much larger part in the actual plot of Snow White With The Red Hair.
Both series focus on the love story between royalty and the commoner that is always kind of nearby them. Of course, Snow White With The Red Hair is more in line with a fairy tale where the girl is a commoner and she is in love with a prince.
Sugar Apple Fairy Tale
Fairies once lived free alongside humanity until humans discovered that stripping a wing from a fairy means literally holding their life in your hands. Now, fairies are enslaved to humans.
Ann is a young girl aspiring to become a Silver Sugar Master like her late mother was. To further this goal, she sets out to the royal capital, and on this dangerous journey she purchases a warrior fairy named Challe Fen Challe to protect her.
As Ann believes in the freedom and equality of faeries, she buys him and offers to give his wing back when she reaches her destination. However, as they travel, their bond together grows.
While Sugar Apple Fairy Tale is much newer than Yona of the Dawn, it is a fantasy romance that, like Yona of the Dawn, features a strong female main character, but still enjoys older shoujo romance tropes.
While Sugar Apple Fairy Tale isn’t following any royalty, it does, like Yona of the Dawn, follow a girl on a journey. She travels from place to place, this time not gathering warriors, but pursuing goals for her profession. Like Yona of the Dawn, she starts a romantic relationship with her more broody bodyguard.
The World is Still Beautiful
Within the realms of the Sun Kingdom, it never rains. However, in the Principality of the Rain, the women of the family possess the ability to call upon the rain.
So when the Sun King, recent conqueror of the world, Livius I decides to take a wife, it is only natural to pick one of the four princesses from the Principality of the Rain.
Nike Remarcier is the youngest and lost a game to her sisters, so she was chosen to go. Frustrated at her lot, she journeys to the kingdom and is surprised to find that the Sun King is not as scary as they say, and also that he is just a boy.
While Yona of the Dawn is an adventure story with a romance element, The World is Still Beautiful is more fully dedicated to romance as a plot. However, what these series really share as fantasy romance anime is that there was clearly quite a bit of effort put into the world building.
The nations and locations in both of these series feel diverse in cultures and wholly unique. No boilerplate medieval fantasy settings here.
Outside of their shared passion for building interesting worlds, both series focus in on the intrigues of the royal palace, even if Yona of the Dawn is set outside of the palace.
For Fans of Asian-Inspired, Non-Japanese Fantasy Settings
Raven of the Inner Palace
Within the imperial palace, the emperor lives with his consorts. One such woman is the Raven Consort, who does not perform night time duties and remains in solitude.
This Raven Consort, a title currently held by the young Liu Shouxue, is charged with handling spiritual matters brought to her – everything from finding lost items to sending on spirits. It is even said that she can perform curses.
After living her days often undisturbed, she is visited by the young emperor Xia Gaojun, whose visits become even more frequent as the pair bond and she assists him in unraveling the spiritual mysteries of the inner palace.
Both Yona of the Dawn and Raven of the Inner Palace build their worlds around Asian influences – Korean in Yona of the Dawn and Chinese in Raven of the Inner Palace – then tell interesting, romance-laced stories in them.
However, neither series is fully focused on romance either. Yona of the Dawn has a love story slowly building, but the main focus is her gathering the Dragon Warriors to reclaim her throne. Alternatively, Raven of the Inner Palace has a romantic relationship building, but it is more focused on solving the supernatural intrigues in the imperial palace.
Fushigi Yuugi
One day while visiting the National Library, junior high students Maika and Yui are transported inside a mysterious book about ancient China called The Universe of the Four Gods.
Within, Maika finds herself with the responsibility of being the priestess of Suzaku, and must gather all his celestial warriors to summon him for three wishes.
However, she is put at odds with Yui when she is manipulated into becoming the priestess of Seiryuu by an enemy nation.
The thing that Fuushigi Yuugi and Yona of the Dawn have most in common is that they put an incredible amount of effort into their world building, and built those worlds inspired by Asian cultures other than Japanese. Fushigi Yuugi, though a isekai, is pretty heavily Chinese-inspired in its fantasy world.
Both Yona of the Dawn and Fushigi Yuugi also tell reverse harem stories in which a girl of importance is guarded by a bunch of handsome bodyguards, some of whom she has romantic feelings for.
The Story of Saiunkoku
Although her family was once nobles, they fell on hard times. Now, with her father making a pittance as an archivist, Shuurei takes odds jobs to make ends meet.
One day, she receives an offer to become the emperor’s consort for a huge sum of money. She accepts in hopes that it could further her own governmental ambitions.
While Yona was chased out of her palace, Shuurei was chased into one (by wanting to escape poverty!) Regardless, both series tell stories about royalty. However, while Yona is the royal, Shuurei just gets increasingly tangled up with royalty and the various ministers in the Chinese Imperial-style palace.
While both series are drama anime, The Story of Saiunkoku is distinctly more dramatic and more focused on romantic relationships. However, you can say that – when broken down to the very bare bones – both series are reverse harem anime.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Yona of the Dawn? Let fans know in the comments section below.
